The Lisbon Metropolitan Area, the Aveiro Region, the Porto Metropolitan Area and the Alentejo Litoral were the most competitive sub-regions in Portugal in 2021, according to data released by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) and reported by ECO.

“In the competitiveness index, only four sub-regions surpassed the national average: Área Metropolitana de Lisboa (113.17), with a prominent position, Região de Aveiro (106.88), Área Metropolitana do Porto (106.10) and Alentejo Litoral (101.80). Competitiveness had the greatest regional disparity among the three dimensions of regional development”, advances the statistics office.

In 2021, there was an increase in the territorial disparity of the results of the competitiveness indices – reaching the highest value of the entire series – and, of cohesion, highlighting, in this dimension, the evolution registered in the coefficient of variation: 6.6% in 2020 and 7.1% in 2021. In 2021, according to the synthetic index of regional development, five of the 25 NUTS III sub-regions surpassed the national average in terms of overall regional development – the metropolitan areas of Lisbon ( 106.06) and Porto (103.32), Cávado (101.36), the Region of Aveiro (101.22), and the Region of Coimbra (100.39).

On the other hand, the mainland interior and the autonomous regions have a lower competitiveness index compared to the mainland coast. This is the case of the Azores, Douro and Alto Tâmega.


Environmental quality

Regarding the environmental quality index, the results are the opposite of the competitiveness index, with a concentration of sub-regions with higher environmental quality indices in the continental interior and in the autonomous regions.

“Among the nine sub-regions with environmental quality indices below the national average, there were five of the 10 most competitive NUTS III: Region of Aveiro, Region of Leiria, West, Metropolitan Area of Lisbon and Alentejo Litoral”, advances the office statistics. On the other hand, Terras de Trás-os-Montes (112.49) was, in 2021, the NUTS III with the best performance in the environmental quality index.